


A Crack in Everything

by Minim Calibre (minim_calibre)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minim_calibre/pseuds/Minim%20Calibre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Morstan was never supposed to meet a John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crack in Everything

It had all been so bloody simple, so comically normal at first.

Girl meets boy, they fall in love.

She should've known from the start that it was too good to be true.

***

Mary Morstan was not supposed to find romance. Mary Morstan was supposed to live a quiet life, have the occasional not very serious fling, and maybe settle down with one too many cats.

Mary Morstan was never supposed to meet a John Watson.

***

The new GP at the clinic has sandy hair, a careworn face, and a surprisingly volatile temper. She knows him, of course. Everyone in London knows who John Watson is.

"You look like you're having a bad day," she tells him a few weeks in, when that temper's been on display for most of it. "Want to go down the pub after work and not talk about it?"

He looks startled, but he says yes never the less.

***

John Watson after an evening at the pub turns out to be funny, charming, and remarkably good in bed.

"Would you like to go out sometime?" he asks at some point during round two.

"I think we're doing this in the wrong order. Ask me again when we're through having sex."

"So," he says some time later, "Would you like to go out sometime?"

***

Mary Morstan is not the name she was born with, but it's the closest she's felt to it in a good many years. Her mother, she thinks, would recognize Mary Morstan in a way she never would've recognized the woman who bore her daughter's name for all that time. She'd have been proud of Mary Morstan: nurse, bleeding-heart Guardian reader, devoted partner to a strong, lovely, slightly broken man. She'd have seen herself in the person she'd raised.

Stupid, really, to have chosen the Morstan name. An amateur mistake made out of a stubborn sentimental streak. The real Mary Morstan, the girl whose life she was living in her stead, would have been her mother's cousin twice removed. Three names removed from who she'd been, it should've been safe. Would have been, had Sherlock Holmes not returned from the grave.

***

The best thing, the smart thing, the thing _she_ would've done, would've been to keep Sherlock Holmes away. All she'd have had to do was keep her mouth shut, and let John's hurt and anger have free rein. No lies, no manipulation required. Except she'd seen the way John looked when he'd talked about Sherlock, seen how much he missed him, every single day. And then Sherlock Holmes strolled back into John's life, and she realised that when he'd jumped, he'd done exactly what she'd have done in his place, and she couldn't. Couldn't leave well enough alone and let human nature take its course. Sentiment again.

By the time she realised how badly she'd fucked up, it was already far too late.

***

Charles Augustus Magnussen is a name she's known for a very long time, and now he knows hers. The cold enjoyment with which he enunciates each of its syllables would make her shudder, if she weren't so very, very well trained.

He takes her left hand, gently tilting it this way and that, his thumb deliberately brushing the inside of her wrist. "John Watson has excellent taste in jewellery," he tells her. "Congratulations on your engagement."

"What do you want?" 

"Nothing at the moment," he responds. "It's important to me that you know that I have the information, that is all."

"Let go of my hand, or I'll break your wrist."

"But you won't do that, will you, Miss Morstan? It would be such a shame were the wrong people to find out where you and your devoted fiance live." The smile is crisp and businesslike. "I'll be in touch."

***

In the James Bond movies John's so fond of watching, it's easy to tell who is good and who is bad, to know which side you're supposed to be on. The reality is so different to that as to be night and day. No longer knowing what good and bad even meant, how anyone with any authority could condone the amount of blood on her hands is a very large part of why she walked away.

She has no illusions about her former profession, nor about the enemies she's made. Many of them no doubt think they're on the side of all that is good and right, but there isn't one of them who would come after her and still let John walk away.

***

It's a trivial matter to befriend Magnussen's PA. Watch her, learn her habits, learn her tastes. Accidentally walk right into her, so engrossed in her favourite obscure book that you just didn't see her coming, and it's all your fault, no, no please don't worry about the coffee soaking through the pages: you've read it before, and you can always get another copy, you're just glad she's OK. Oh, you like it too? I've never met anyone else who's even heard of it! Can I please buy you a replacement cup of coffee? After all, it was my fault, and gosh, you've got remarkable taste, what's your name?

It's Janine, which Mary already knew. She's just moved over from Dublin and hardly knows anyone. Mary knew that as well. It's fun, talking to her. Mary hadn't quite anticipated that, but it's just as well. It's easier to get close to the mark when there's truth wrapped up in the lie. 

When it's time to chose her wedding party, it seems almost natural to ask Janine to be a bridesmaid.

***

Mary Morstan was never supposed to meet a John Watson, nor marry a John Watson, and she sure as hell wasn't ever supposed to bear his child, or anyone's child. She gave up that right a long time ago. But she did, and she is, and if she can only buy enough time, she can come up with a way to keep them out of harm's way.

But then Sherlock takes on Lady Smallwood's case, and it all goes pear shaped.

***

Panic is another amateur error.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should never have waited. She should have taken Magnussen out surgically as soon as she knew he was a risk. Only she hadn't wanted to be that person, hadn't wanted to be that calculated, pragmatic killer again.

This, this is so much worse. Sherlock's her friend. He trusts her, loves her, even, in his own peculiar way.

It isn't the first time she's had to target someone she's grown to care about, far from it. If Sherlock is here, then so is John, and she cannot see another way out of this that will keep her husband safe. So Mary tallies up her options, runs the odds, and takes aim. It's calculated. Pragmatic. Everything she hoped she'd never be again.

But it's John, and it's their child, and there are some risks she cannot afford to take.

When she gets home, she barely makes it to the toilet ahead of the vomit. She throws up until she's tasting bile, until the smell of Sherlock's blood is drowned out by the smell of sick. By her best estimate, she has at least an hour before John rings her with the news. Mary rinses her mouth and makes herself a cup of tea she probably won't drink. Then she curls up on the sofa, paperback in hand, and waits.

***

Sherlock survives, as she'd hoped and as she'd feared. And he could have no better revenge than destroying her, shattering all that she holds dear. It surprises her that he doesn't, even when by all rights, he should.

"I'll take your case." And she realises that he understands, of course, without her needing to explain. He'd die for John just as readily as he'd kill for him. It's why she liked him in the first place. He understands and forgives, and selfishly, she wishes John could do the same.

Later, from his hospital bed, he wrinkles his nose almost imperceptibly at the bag of grapes in her hand and looks up at her, considering. "You're a nurse." 

"Not like you to state the obvious, Sherlock."

"You could nurse me. Seems only fair, considering."

"You've managed to piss off all of the medical staff here, haven't you?"

"Ages ago."

"You've only been back in two days."

"Like I said, ages ago." He gives her a little boy smirk, and she can't help the smile that crosses her face. 

He doesn't ask her about John. She doesn't volunteer the information. He can probably get it from the creases in her jumper or the scuffs on her boots. Or, more likely, from the shadows beneath her eyes and the tension around her mouth that for all her training, she cannot seem to shake.

***

Time passes, and she and John pass each other like shift workers as Sherlock recovers, each of them looking out for him in their own way, each of them carefully stepping around the other, never quite occupying the same time or space. John's side of the bed is cold more often than not, but he hasn't moved out, no matter how much time he spends on the sofa or at Baker Street.

The forced togetherness of the twelve week scan is even worse than the estrangement, at least until the moment when she sees their child's form flicker on the screen, a greyscale landscape of possibility. 

"God, that's..." the tell-tale hitch in his voice is something she'd have teased him about, in different life to the one they're leading. "That's us. There." When she looks over, he's grinning.

Mary doesn't trust herself to speak, so she nods a response as the tears slip down her cheeks.

***

Twenty weeks brings another scan, another fleeting reconciliation.

They're going to have a daughter. They have lunch, afterwards, and talk about names and nurseries. The gaps in the conversation are neither companionable nor awkward, but somewhere in between. 

When she goes by Baker Street later to badger Sherlock about doing his bloody physical therapy, he tries to get her to divulge the sex of the baby. Mary smiles, and ruffles his curls. 

"Not telling, Sherlock."

He tilts his head up and declares, "Boy. Obviously."

***

She never lets herself forget about Magnussen, and there are nights when the thought of him wakes her almost as often as the demands of her bladder. As much as she can, though, she forces him to the back of her mind. She's always been good at compartmentalising, and there's nothing Mary can do when she's waddling around, third trimester large and needing a wee every five minutes. She can focus on her daughter to be, on mending her marriage, but not on Magnussen, not yet, and perhaps not ever.

Then Sherlock, that stupid, wonderful, arrogant child of a man takes the matter out of her hands entirely. 

She wanted Magnussen gone, but not this way, never this way. 

The heartfelt goodbyes may be followed by a last minute reprieve, but she knows you don't come back from what Sherlock's just done for her, for them, not really. At best, you get to keep moving. The worst, well, that doesn't bear thinking. No matter what, it's a debt too big for anyone to repay.

Not that that will stop her from trying. 

She'll make that her vow to him.


End file.
